


Erik and Charles

by AsterRoc



Series: Finding Peace [1]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Emotionally Crippled Erik Is Fun To Read, Holocaust, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mind Meld, My First AO3 Post, My First Fanfic, My First Smut, My First Work in This Fandom, Power Dynamics, Power Play, Yaoi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-04
Updated: 2013-03-04
Packaged: 2017-12-04 07:00:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/707882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsterRoc/pseuds/AsterRoc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles has finally found someone whose strength and power are nearly a match for his own.  But do their goals and desires align?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Erik and Charles

**Author's Note:**

> Includes semi-consensual sex, male/male sex, and references to the Holocaust (though no worse than what's already in XMFC).
> 
> I have marked this work as containing rape/non-con because I believe in consent culture: without enthusiastic consent, I'm calling it rape/non-con. Many people would call what's contained herein dub-con instead. In short, there is sex, and one partner isn't aware of whether the other partner is enthusiastically consenting.

I nervously hold the gun to Erik's temple. "Are you sure about this?" I ask, panting. 

Erik takes a deep breath. "Of course I'm sure. I can do it." 

"Even if you're not angry? I know you usually draw strength from your anger." 

"I can do it. Just pull the trigger." His smoldering gray eyes stare intensely into mine as his whole frame vibrates with energy. I take a deep breath. 

And switch the safety back on the gun, pointing it away from Erik's head and down. "I can't do it," I say. "You always use your anger for your strength, and you don't have that now. I'm not going to kill you." 

Erik looks at me, his face falling in dismay. "Aw c'mon," he protests while taking the gun from me. "You know I can do this!" 

I just walk away back towards the mansion. He might be able to do it. But not if he isn't angry. "Damn you, Charles!" Erik yells at me. Well, he's angry now. "You don't even care about what I can do unless it helps you and your CIA friends!" I hear him and feel his anger, but I'm tired of this old argument. If he doesn't want to help this nation, if he doesn't want to help me, he doesn't need to be here. I have never made him stay. Never. 

I stride down the corridor of the mansion towards my study, and I hear Erik's heavy footfalls behind me. He only stomps when he's angry; usually he's silent as a cat. "Stop!" he yells at my back, but I keep walking. And then my shoes stop walking and my belt buckle pushes back on my center of gravity, and I'm lifted off my feet by the zipper and button of my tan khakis. Some days I think I'd be better off eliminating all metal from the mansion, and other days I want to get through to Erik so such steps will never be necessary. My mood is rapidly turning towards the former now as I hang in the air by the seat of my pants, all on Erik's whim. 

Erik's steps have stopped, and I turn my head to look at him and roll my eyes dramatically. His tall frame fills the hallway from top to bottom, but his muscles are lean and swift. His power and energy bring bullet trains to mind. "Really Erik," I chide as I cross my arms. "Using your power against me, when you know I can't do anything physical to defend myself? Isn't that a bit childish?" I deliberately refrain from mentioning the non-physical things I could do to defend myself, and they don't seem to occur to Erik on his own. I wouldn't use my powers against him, though Erik freely uses his against me. 

His piercing grey eyes shift towards the ground guiltily, then back at my face. His eyes harden. "Fuck you," he says and drops me on my ass. I rub my behind as I rise to my feet. 

"Really?" I ask, arching one eyebrow and straightening my button-down shirt. "Is that all you've got? 'Fuck you'? Some show of strength." I don't know why I'm pushing him. Maybe it's because he's been pushing me so hard for the past couple weeks. Throwing these temper tantrums whenever I've been trying to help him grow, saying that I'm only using him. So many times I've been tempted to peek, to see what's going on inside him. But after that first meeting when he chased the submarine, I have never done that again. I scan everyone I meet, it's automatic, but once I saw what he had been through, how he had been used and manipulated in his past, how much he had lost in the Holocaust, I promised myself I would never peek or tamper with his mind unless I received his permission. I haven't told Erik that of course, he wouldn't believe me, but my actions I think have shown it. I hope. 

"You keep thinking you're so strong," I go on. Even though I haven't peeked into Erik's mind again since that first time, I still remember everything I saw then. And I remember exactly which buttons to push. "You think you're so strong, but really you're afraid of losing control. Control over your own life, control over others, and control of yourself." And that did it. I don't know what I was hoping to achieve, but Erik snaps at that last sentence. The door at the end of the hallway slams open, the door to Erik's room I realize, but as my gaze flicks back from the door to Erik, he barrels into me and forces me into his room with nothing but his physical strength, no powers. The door slams shut behind us. 

I swallow around a sudden lump in my throat as I roll out from under Erik's strong body. I feel the adrenaline pounding through my veins, and don't know if it's fear or excitement. I don't feel anyone else in this wing of the mansion right now. Nobody's nearby to hear me calling for help. I back away from Erik and stumble as I feel the bed against the backs of my legs. Nobody to hear me begging Erik to stop. The metal bedposts suddenly bend from their usual job of serving as headboard and footboard and wrap around my legs and wrists with a groan of twisting metal. Nobody to hear me begging Erik for more. Now where did that come from? 

Much like it did when Erik was interrogating Emma Frost, the metal of the bed holds me immobile. Then, the gold plated metal gripped her cruelly, twisting and squeezing her chest and throat, trying to force her to acquiesce. Now however, the metal moves into place around my limbs and lifts me off the ground with a firm but not painful grasp, and then holds me spread-eagled onto the mattress. 

Erik's cold gray eyes bore into mine. "I'll show you strength," he mutters, half at me and half at himself, and I cannot tell for sure if he is actually seeing me or some scene from his past. It briefly flashes through my mind that I could know for sure if I peeked, but I do not, and it is to my shame that I do not know whether it is from my continued respect for Erik, or my fear of what I might see there. 

My belt buckle and the metal buttons and zipper of my pants undo themselves slowly, at the same time as Erik's undo as well. I had never realized until now that all of Erik's clothing has metal elements. His polo shirt buttons are metal and are already unbuttoned, shamelessly exhibiting his fine collarbones, and now the buttons rise into the air, pulling his shirt up off his head. The bed's metal bars that were holding me pinned to the mattress suddenly jerk me into the air as well, and more bars whisk my pants and boxers off my legs and my rip my shirt off my torso, all before I can land again on the bed. My breath catches in my throat at the sudden jerking pain through wrists and ankles, and before I can stop myself I instinctively force some of the pain onto the person who caused it, Erik. 

His eyes narrow and his face contorts, not with the secondhand pain but with rage at my intrusion into his mind. "And here I thought you respected me," he growls, almost animalistic in his growing anger. "You almost convinced me. You and your 'sister' are just the same, never showing your real face." He puts a twist on the word "sister" that makes me realize suddenly that he has feelings for Raven. But despite my realization, his snug white boxer briefs strip themselves from their taught clasp on his muscled thighs, the metal woven into the elastic responding to Erik's mental commands. My eyes follow the boxer briefs down, but when they are unceremoniously dumped on the floor, I dart my gaze back at his face, desperately avoiding looking at anything between his feet and slate gray eyes. I suppress the urge to lick my lips in nervousness or anticipation. 

I work hard to keep my eyes focused upon his, to validate who he is as a person, as a man. Even so I cannot help but struggle in my restraints and I blurt out, "I do respect you, I didn't mean to do that, you just startled me is all," but he is already on the corner of the bed, his cock erect and pointing towards me, and now my eyes are fixated on it, I cannot tear them away. Erik's anger is beating against my mind, so hard that I cannot keep it out, but underlying it all is a need, a hunger, that I find terrifying, hungering both for acceptance of who he is, and a need to dominate, to be in control. I had read about these sorts of feelings, but only as pathologies, and I had never experienced them in real people, let alone in people that I cared about. In the ebb of a wave of Erik's need, I am startled to realize that I am beginning to reciprocate the feeling, that despite my fear my own cock is beginning to stiffen. 

"No," Erik whispers in a dark and throaty voice. "You do not respect me. You see me as a tool to use. Well, now I'm going to use you," and the metal bed work on my ankles suddenly pulls my legs even farther apart with a creaking noise, then up from the bed away from the mattress. My legs are splayed open and apart, giving him an unrestricted view of everything from my still mostly soft prick to my anus. He spits on his hand and begins to rub his still growing member. With his eyes fixed to his view of my thoroughly exposed body, Erik continues "I'm going to take you and use you and show you what it feels like." 

As I realize that he intends to take things all the way, I feel fear beginning to dawn in me, not at the impending event that Erik thinks will be a rape, but at what it might do to his psyche. Although in normal circumstances, I would certainly enjoy this, Erik views me as his one confidante, the one person he can tell his deepest darkest secrets, and if this encounter takes that relationship away from him, I have no clue what that will do to him. Erik kneels down on the bed, and drinks in the sight of my naked form held helplessly to the bed by his powers, and revels in the sight of how his strength seemingly overwhelms me. 

Of course I know that I am not helpless. Just as I could have stopped Erik from leaving the Division X facility those weeks ago, I could stop him now with just the slightest of efforts. I could be direct, blanking my actual location from his mind, or delivering pain until he gave in and released me. Or I could be subtle, making him lose desire for me and break down in remorse, an emotion that would seem completely natural to him in this situation and which only I would ever know had been imposed upon him. But I cannot do that to Erik. His strength and the integrity of his mind are so valuable. If I went in without his permission, that would change who he is, and I am certain it would not be for the better. No, I must endure this as it is, and hope that the effects are cathartic upon him, rather than breaking him. 

Not that it will be too hard to endure. Erik is beautiful. Firm abs, toned thigh muscles as he slides across the bed on his knees to position himself between my outstretched legs. He grips my calves with his strong hands, not because he wants to hold me in place, his abilities are already doing that through the medium of the bedposts, so it must be because he wants to touch my skin, and the sensation sends a shock up my spine that is almost electric. Erik takes his right hand back off my ankle to gently stroke his cock again. It is long and hard, the head red and swollen. He spits in his hand again and strokes his hand along the shaft, lubricating it, and I am glad. As much as I now want to feel him inside me, this is my first time with a man and I know it will hurt. 

Erik shuffles closer towards me on the bed, and now his dick is pointed straight at my virgin ass, though still a few inches away. He looks at my rosebud intently for a moment, and I think that perhaps he will reach his hand out to touch me there, to help ease his imminent entrance, but then his piercing gray eyes travel upwards, seemingly unseeing as they pass my balls and my now hard cock, and to my eyes. Erik places the head of his penis against my opening while watching my face intently and again I feel that jolt of electricity. "Well, 'Professor'," he says mockingly, his eyes cold, "let's see who does the teaching tonight," and thrusts forwards with his hips. 

I feel a searing pain in my bum, but at the same time I feel a wave of pleasure from Erik so strong that it overwhelms my own sensations and I feel my own cock pulse in response as he bottoms out inside me. This time his sensations subsume my own, and the pain of my own body fades away and I ride on the tide of Erik's pleasure as he slowly draws his shaft back out again. It is not being held to the bed by Erik's power, with my legs spread open for his access, that makes me feel helpless now, nor even the warm thrust of Erik's shaft invading deep inside me, but the sensations that Erik himself is experiencing which I am unable to keep out of my mind. 

Thrusting in again, he holds himself deep inside me for a moment, my hot tunnel grasping his shaft firmly, then slowly withdraws himself. When he pulls back out it is delicious torture for him, leaving the close tightness of my anus for the cool air of the room, but then just before his head pops out, he quickly pounds deep inside me, and both he and I feel a sense of his belonging within me. Above his sensation of being surrounded and caressed, I can feel floating my own sensation of being fulfilled and completed, but as he growls his need at me, I work hard to keep my feelings from feeding back to him. 

Erik begins to thrust faster inside me, pulling in and out rapidly. On each out stroke I feel myself emptying and miss his shaft filling me up, and on each thrust inwards I feel the pressure of his length and worry it cannot all fit inside me. And then on a deep thrust inside me I feel his glans rubbing against my prostate and I begin to feel dizzy. My entire world has narrowed to the sensations inside me, of his shaft moving inside of me, and of the sensations radiating off of Erik. Up until now although I have been experiencing what Erik is, I have been able to keep my own feelings in check. But now as Erik's long shaft rubs my prostate the pleasure is so intense that finally I cannot keep from sending my sensations out somewhere, and in my passion I focus them on Erik. 

His gray eyes widen and warm slightly, then close with our mutual pleasure, and then we are both lost in the feedback loop, feeling our cock thrust deep inside our anus, warm and tightly wrapped around us, every spot inside us touched and filled. This is something I have never been able to experience with a woman, we don't have the same anatomy, the Charles part of us knows, and it is something the Erik part of me would never want to feel with a woman, he would never want to open himself up to another person the way that he has inadvertently done with me. We ride the cresting wave together, and we explode together, our pleasure geysering out of our cocks as we gasp together. 

After a few final thrusts inside me, Erik supports himself above my body with his lean muscled arms for a moment, then collapses onto me. We are still connected, both with his shaft inside me and his skin against mine, and with our minds cradled together, sharing the afterglow. We are two separate people again, but I can still feel his sensations as his prick begins to soften within me. I realize that my stomach is sticky between us and my bowels are overly full with his come and I will need to use the bathroom soon, and as soon as I am aware of this latter urge Erik's head jerks upright, startled. 

He yanks his cock out of me with an emptying feeling, and with an inarticulate cry he slaps me across the cheek with his hand and with his power the bed posts thrust me onto the floor, violently recoiling from contact with my skin. Erik winces and flinches as I hit the carpet and slide an inch. I will have rug burn along my right arm, to match his slap across my left cheek. Erik's left hand grasps at his right biceps, and I realize consciously what I should have earlier: that our minds are still connected. I yank my awareness out of his mind, and we both gasp with the emptiness and solitude as I do so. But before my consciousness entirely leaves his behind, I can feel Erik's mind denying what it had just experienced, asserting at me or himself, I cannot tell, " _I raped you. I'm stronger than you. You can't have enjoyed it. My power is greater than yours._ " 

His unspoken words echoing in my mind, I grab what's left of my clothing and flee his room. As I do so, I feel no temptation whatsoever to peek at whatever damage I might have done. 

*****

"I want you to turn that radio dish towards us," I tell Erik. 

We stand a discreet meter apart – not an intimate half-meter apart, not a distancing two meters. Erik leans against the stone banister looking between the radio dish and me, searching my face. I resist taking a step closer towards him as his eyes meet mine. The only thing I can see is him: strong and proud, but worried about testing the limits of that strength, worried that he might be lacking. 

The events in his room are always at the top of my mind every time I encounter him, be it physically in person like now, or when mentally sweeping the grounds as I always do to keep tabs on everyone. Even when I am not in Erik's physical or mental presence, the experience still keeps floating to the surface without my bidding, and I have been jerking off to fantasies of Erik constantly. But I never come. It's just not the same, not feeling him with me. Not feeling his feelings. It's so alone. 

Neither of us have said anything about that night however, so I don't know if it's constantly in Erik's thoughts as well. And I haven't peeked. I had done that with girlfriends before, even ones I was crazy about, and I was never happy with what I saw. Even if I didn't respect Erik the way that I do, even if I weren't terrified of what I might see in his mind after that night, even then I wouldn't peek into a lover's mind. 

"Are you kidding me?" Erik blows out in a quick breath, skeptical of my demand, drawing me back out of my thoughts.

"You have the strength," I tell him. What I don't tell him is how to access it. 

He looks at me, at the dish, then back at me. "Fine," he says and shrugs a little. He stretches out both his hands towards the dish. For small things he doesn't usually gesture, but much like touching my temple, it helps him to focus his strength or finesse when it's truly needed. And he needs it now if he's going to try to do this one with his anger alone. Erik's face contorts with the effort, beads of sweat break out across his brow, and I can feel him trying to be angry at something, but it just doesn't come. I have to say I am relieved to learn that he does not have any anger against me to tap into. 

Finally he drops his hands with a sharp exhalation of breath, as if he had been holding it, and I too let out my breath. Erik shakes his head. "I can't do it. I'm not strong enough." 

I look deep into his piercing gray eyes. He is strong enough, I know it, I felt it in him the very first day I met him. It is the backbone of why I respect him so much. But just as I have known of Erik's strength from that very first scan, I also know that anger is not the way for him to access it. And I know that the learning of how to access it will hurt him. 

"Well?" Erik's eyebrows rise as he watches my face in turn. " _What aren't you saying?_ " he thinks "at" me. Although Erik himself has no telepathic abilities, the main thing that has changed since our "encounter" that night is that he has realized I keep myself open to the stronger feelings and thoughts of those around me, as a method of self-defense that I learned in my childhood. Erik has figured out that when he thinks particularly "loudly," I can't help but hear it, it's not something that I can turn off, or would turn off even if I could. We all need to have our defenses after all, such as Erik lacing all his clothing with metal elements and surrounding himself with metal objects. Once the existence of mutants becomes public knowledge, as I am sure it will, knowing the surface thoughts of those around me might save my life. I in turn accept that he is willing for me to hear these directed thoughts of his, and do not try to block them out as I would his other thoughts. 

I mentally sigh. He is inviting me after all, asking me without words like that. And he is _so_ inviting. 

"Mind if I?..." I raise my hand in a gesture towards my left temple, watching his eyes the whole time. They widen slightly as he takes in my meaning then he nods briefly and adds a throaty "go ahead."

There is so much emotion roiling at the top of his mind. Anger and rage, undirected and fading now as he lets it go; resignation and disappointment that he isn't as strong as he wants to be; fear of losing control of his strength, fear of losing control over his own life, and fear of… of disappointing me! That one is a surprise. There is more near the surface, but I try to ignore it and push on down to his memories, searching for a particular one that will let him tap into deeper emotions. The desire bubbling just under his surface pushes to the forefront and guides me into a memory without me willing it: Erik making love to… my sister! Erik watches Raven's form change spasmodically in the throes of her orgasm, and I watch in amazement as Erik calls out my name while he comes. 

I shove that memory back down and look for a less distracting one, a memory that can help Erik harness his power. And there, I find it, and pull it up to the surface where Erik can see it too. I am not sure which birthday it was, but some few candles are upon a cake, the number of candles wavering in young Erik's eyes as water fills them. His mother smiles at him and at Erik's father, and Erik knows how hard both his parents must have worked to find the candles, to save the flour, to save the eggs, the butter, the sugar. 

I step back from the memory, letting Erik re-experience it on his own. I drop my fingers from my temple, such a silly device to help me focus my power on delicate tasks, but I do not pull back from his surface mind entirely. His stormy gray eyes are red and stare off to some _when_ that I am not. The tears begin to spill over from his memory into the present day as Erik slowly comes back to me. 

"I didn't know I still had that memory," he whispers hoarsely, still not quite looking at me even now. 

"There's so much more to you than you know, not just pain and anger." My own voice is soft, trying to reach deep into those hurt places that he doesn't want anyone else to know about, but which he cannot hide from me. I blink my eyes against my own tears and swallow. "There's good in you too. When you can harness all that, you will possess a power that no one can match. Not even me." 

Erik finally looks into my eyes then, his gray eyes searching for something in mine. I do not know what he sees, but he glances at my left temple, where I always make that damned gesture when needing to focus, and I nod slightly and place my fingers there again to make it explicit that I'm still touching his mind. I feel his thoughts touch briefly on my final "not even me," but he chooses to place it aside for now rather than take issue with it at this time. Erik turns towards the field and the radio dish again, raises a single hand, and we hear the grinding of the gears as it slowly turns towards us. Erik looks at me and smiles, and I can feel his triumph and joy at his power, and at his control over his power. As he grins at me, I wiggle my fingers slightly to signal my intent, and let a bit of my own pride at his achievement gently leak into him. Erik's grin becomes wider still with the positive feedback, and he rushes up and gives me a big bear hug, and I of course lower my arm to reciprocate. 

I don't know whether the desire begins to leak in from him or from me, but as we hold each other close we turn our heads towards each other and I can feel our lips slowly, inexorably, drawing together. Certainly the desire has been simmering under the surface for both of us, Erik's linked to that damned memory of his (calling out _my_ name!), mine drawing me back to that tempestuous night where he thought he dominated me. As that memory flits through my mind, my control must not have been as tight as I thought, for I feel something in Erik's mind shift and he pulls back from me. In his head I hear myself saying again " _you will possess a power that no one can match; not even me._ " 

Aloud he says, "You let me."

I freeze. I am unable to move, my heart in my throat. I am too stunned to even read what is in his mind. Erik pulls fully out of my embrace and continues. 

"That night we were… together. I thought," he pauses, clears his throat. His eyes cannot meet mine, and that is probably good because I know that if he looked into mine he would see everything inside me, and even I do not know what is there right now. He paces a few steps away from me, and a couple back. "I thought I was raping you," he says softly. And then he does look up at me, and I am reminded that our minds are still connected as the hurt inside him begins to flood upwards. "And all the time you were _letting_ me think that!" He looks down then back up at me, takes another step away, and I can feel that he is about to run. 

"Wait!" I interrupt him. I reach my hand out towards him, I don't need to touch my temple for this, and I gently urge him mentally to comply. Not forcing, asking. Erik feels my request, and decides to do as I ask. His stance slumps and he waits, not looking at me. I cannot trust my voice. I don't even know what I would say. " _Look at me?_ " I ask him mentally. After a moment he does so, turning first his body back towards me, then his head, and then finally raising his red-rimmed eyes to meet mine. There are a full three meters between us. I don't even need the link between us to feel his pain again, his sense of betrayal. (He thought he raped me, why should _he_ feel betrayed? Because his assumed rape was honest while my silent acquiescence was not? Or because I snooped on his sensations and fed him mine without him understanding?) I still don't know what to say to him as he looks at me, so I slowly bring two fingers to my temple and raise an eyebrow in question. After a long moment, a silent moment that stretches out forever, Erik finally nods slowly, a very tiny nod. 

And I very slowly, small bit by small bit, open myself up to Erik, showing him first what I know of him. 

When we first met that day out in the bay, I scanned him thoroughly and deeply. I do this to every new person I meet. It is another instinctual thing that I do, and would not stop even if I could. I need to know what sort of person they are, if they are a threat to me or mine, if they can be of use to me, if they are worth my spending time on. Erik was fascinating, there were such depths of pain and anger that I had never seen in someone before. He was on a worldwide quest of revenge, killing everyone who had ever hurt him in any way. And yet there was a beautiful part deep inside him that was untouched by it all, that regretted every death he caused, that mourned every missed opportunity that he had bypassed in his fanaticism. He yearned for more power, more strength, so that he could control those around him, but that pure part wanted to test his limits out of sheer intellectual curiosity, and to see how he could prevent the things that happened to him from ever happening to another innocent. In that one brief moment of probe, I saw all of his past, all of his life, and everything that he was. And I also saw everything that he could be, and this application of his power, even more than the power itself, is what drew me towards him. When Erik asked me that night months ago outside Division X what I knew about him and I answered "everything," I was not exaggerating. 

And now I let Erik see me. 

My own quest for acceptance with every hot young co-ed I met, each one derailed when I found out, as of course I would, that her mental capacities were nowhere near mine. It was not just that they weren't gifted like me, but they just weren't curious, just weren't interested. My quest for power of my own, power to shape the world around me, to make a world that was safe for people like myself and my adoptive sister Raven. My perpetual fear that Raven would let something slip someday and we would be found out and killed by those unwilling to understand. My resulting constant testing of my own boundaries, stretching my strength (my triumph when as a junior I brought the senior prom queen into my bed), stretching my distance (the long slow effort it took to reach minds any further away than the bounds of our property), and improving my finesse (the sudden understanding and breakthrough when I first convinced Raven herself that I was someone else). 

Yes, I am certain that I am the most powerful mutant I have ever met, even more powerful than Erik despite the physical manifestation of his powers, likely the most powerful in the world. No, of course Erik didn't, couldn't, do anything to me that I didn't want him to do. And Erik colluded with me in his self-deception; he knew perfectly well the extent of my powers after spending just a little time with me. It's not like I ever hid them from him. 

All this Erik sees as I open my mind up to him, and more. As he struggles to absorb it all, I direct my mind, and thus his, to certain things I want him to understand. I show him again my loneliness despite all the women I have seduced with my words and my mind. I show him that I do everything I can to protect my adoptive sister Raven (though not from him, never from him) not only because she is my kin and my kind, but also because I know she is so much weaker than me. I show him my joy at finding him, for the first time in my life meeting someone whose power comes close to equaling my own, and that the same person possesses a strength of mind that does match mine. And I show him what I feel about him. The admiration and the worry that I have for him. The desire to bring him to his full potential. The desire. 

I feel it welling up in me again as I open myself up to Erik. I am so wrapped up in our mutual minds that I can barely feel my heart begin to race, and when I do it pulls me back out of my own emotions. I blink my eyes a few times as I realize my breath is coming in short gasps as well, as if I had just run a mile against Hank McCoy. As I focus on Erik's face again, I slowly lower my fingers from my temple and begin to withdraw. " _No,_ " I hear Erik say in my receding mind. " _Please stay._ " 

He reaches his hands out towards me, and the next thing I know I am in his strong arms, his mouth pressed hot and wet against mine. His hands are slipping up my back under my shirt as I tangle mine in his hair. Erik's tongue runs along my teeth, his lips sucking at mine, and I thrust my mind back into his as he thrusts his tongue deeper into my mouth. He groans at my mental penetration, and I would have worried at the intrusion if I didn't feel in his mind and now in mine the desperate desire he harbored to feel us both together as we did that one night before, when we was in denial that it was happening. 

I pull back my head to suck in a breath and as I do so I feel him glance around us apprehensively. " _There's no one nearby right now, they're all on the other side of the grounds, training,_ " I say into his mind. " _I will know when they come close, and I will turn their minds away from us. Don't worry, I won't let anything interrupt us._ " Erik now consciously knows that I am capable of this and his gaze returns to mine. I feel the desire flare up in him again, the outline of his hardening cock pressed against my leg, but this time his desire is untainted by the desperate need for simultaneous acceptance and domination that I felt before. And then our individuality is subsumed as we are lost to the feelings within each others' minds and bodies. 

We slowly undress each other, and we are not sure which articles of clothing are removed by Erik's power, and which by Charles' hands, and it does not matter. One of us leans back against the stone railing, hands gripping it tightly, while the other presses his lean body against him. We are not sure which of us kneels on the gravel in front of the other, but the pain in his knees is washed away by the pleasure of a warm mouth engulfing his prick in a single swallow. One of our mouths runs up and down one of our shafts, one hand cupping around our balls, a finger snaking between our legs towards our warm dark opening, and gently pressing to gain access. When our finger slips inside, we gasp at the frisson of pain, and it sends electric pulses to both our nipples. Even so, we use Erik's power to bring a bottle of hand lotion from a bathroom in the mansion, we liberally coat our fingers with it and spread it around the puckered opening before gently teasing a second finger in with the first. 

The pleasure is intense as we swirl our tongue around the underside of our penis, along the glans, at the same time gently thrusting fingers in and out of our anus. Our other hand is now liberally coated with lotion and pumps our shaft in time with our fingers working inside. The man standing throws his head back and gasps to express our pleasure; the man kneeling sucks harder on the prick in his mouth. One head glances down and one head up, and our gazes lock together, blue eyes and gray eyes staring into each other, communicating more deeply with eyes and minds than words could ever allow. 

The man kneeling rises, running his hands slowly, languorously, up the other man's legs and hips while doing so, and then wrapping his arms around the other's torso. Our lips lock together as our hands run up each others' backs, a hand snaking into the other's hair, and down to each others' buttocks, a finger slipping between his ass cheeks. Our hard cocks grind together, sandwiched between our stomachs, rubbing our shafts together with sweet slick friction, spreading the lotion between us. 

We want more, we need more, we need to feel filled, we need to thrust deep into a warm cavity. We both know that we want Charles to take the lead this time, so Erik's body turns to face the stone railing and grips it with both hands. The Charles body slides its prick along Erik's upper thigh, and then between his ass cheeks as Charles holds them together around his shaft. Then with one short jerk back, Charles positions his head at the opening to Erik's anus, then thrusts in quickly. Such completeness, such fullness, is something that we have never felt, even that other night together. Being able to give in, fully and completely, to someone else who is stronger than ourselves, is something that has never happened. The warmth and pressure around our cock is almost too much to bear, and we slowly withdraw it back into the cool summer air, feeling our hands grasping our hips, then plunge it back in to fill up the emptiness inside, our balls slapping against our thighs. The ring of pressure squeezing our cock leaves trails of fire up the shaft, and the head deep inside of us rubs insistently at our prostate. We grasp the stone railing tightly to steady our weakening knees as we pound into our ass from behind. The pleasure is so intense, we cannot hold out much longer, so we squeeze our channel on the shaft of our prick, and suddenly and unexpectedly we climax in a long hard shudder, thrusting deep inside, pulsing over and over again, spurting up onto our belly and the stone still tightly gripped in our hands. 

As our cocks slowly soften, we slide down to the ground and rest cradled in each other's arms. I pull my mind just far enough away from Erik's to be certain there is still nobody nearby, briefly worried I might have missed someone in our throes of passion, and we do remain alone and undisturbed. Our knees still hurt from the gravel, and I'm sure that there is a bit of a scrape there, though our minds are not separate enough yet to know whose knees it is. Eventually we rouse ourselves enough to bring our clothes to my room, and there we slip into sleep, our bodies as entwined as our minds are. 

*****

The next day we sit together in the library of the mansion on plush upholstered chairs facing each other with a small end table between us. A wood chess set sits on the small table, though we are not currently focused on it. A moment ago I was thinking about Erik bending me forward over the back of my chair, wondering how to position ourselves so that we don't reopen the knee scrapes from the gravel yesterday, but now my attention is fully riveted by what Erik has said he plans for Shaw when we meet him tomorrow off the coast of Cuba. 

I look intensely into Erik's eyes, begging and pleading with him to not do this thing, leaning forward in my earnestness. "Listen to me very carefully, my friend." The term is the most I can bring myself to say while Erik is in this mood. And it is more important for him to know he has a friend than a lover. "Killing will not bring you peace." 

Erik's gray eyes are cold and distant as he looks back at me. In them I can see nothing of his feelings for me; in fact I am no longer certain that they are there. Does he regret the closeness we shared yesterday, despite the fact that this time it was voluntary on his part? Erik leans back in his chair and tips his head to the side gently, as if baffled by my suggestion to let Shaw live. Softly and oh so coldly he responds, "Peace was never an option." 

And with the finality of that statement something inside me falls apart. I know that he will kill Shaw on the morrow. Without even touching his mind now I know this – it was in his mind when we first met, and nothing I have said or done or shared in the past months or weeks or days has changed him enough to make that untrue. And I know that I cannot stay with a man who would decide in cold blood to destroy a life. For a moment, the urge to change his decision is almost more than I can withstand, and I think Erik can see this struggle in my eyes. Or maybe he just knows me well enough now. He watches me, tense, as a caged beast might watch his jailor, and I see muscles ripple in his arms and I feel the hairs on my own arms rise with static electricity. Erik is clearly readying to defend himself should I take any action. I in turn watch him carefully as well, the way that a man watches a tiger that is in no cage at all, fearing that the gun he carries may not actually be enough to stop the wild animal if he chooses to attack. 

Suddenly I look down and away, unable to meet his piercing gaze any longer, and the moment passes. I know that things between us will never be the same again. I guess I thought, in my arrogance, that I could change him even without my power. But even with all that we have shared he remains the Erik that I met that first night: trying to stop a submarine with the force of his anger, and willing to drown in the attempt. I turn back towards him, and deliberately put my fingers to my temple as I snake a thought out to him. I cannot say in words what I am feeling, that things cannot be the same between us, that I cannot be with the man that he continues to be, but I show him. 

Erik's eyes are empty of everything as they gaze back into mine. 

I want to offer him peace. I want to offer to take away his desire to kill. 

But instead what I offer to take away is _us_.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time submitting to AO3 (though this work has been submitted elsewhere), so I'd greatly appreciate feedback, from grammar/spelling to structure/plot. For example, right now I have the entire piece as a single chapter, should I split it into three chapters instead? Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this!
> 
> Edit: Decided to "own" this and put my main pseud on it.


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